Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#24774
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Danny Burstein works on versatility rather than volume, and the catalogue keeps proving that the quieter choice was the correct one.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Danny Burstein appears in 5 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Danny. tick, tick... BOOM! is the clearest case: a film rated 7.6 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, quiet performance, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for science fiction, comedy, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Lonny Price, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jason Bateman and others, Danny Burstein helped set a standard other performers now audition against. Awards bodies have been slower than the work, which is usually the sign of a career built on choices rather than campaigns.
tick, tick... BOOM! (2021) as Al · The Family Fang (2016) as Eric Wilcox · Blackhat (2015) as Assistant Warden Jeffries
Career snapshot
Ranked #24774 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
5
2015–2026
Career length
11 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.6
tick, tick... BOOM!
Average Nutevio score
3.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.6
tick, tick... BOOM!
Most frequent director
Lonny Price
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Lonny Price
Most common genre
Comedy
3 titles
Average runtime
1h 31m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.8
out of 10
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio metric
Cultural impact and legacy, measured separately from craft — how far the work travelled once it left the cinema.
Nutevio Influence Score
6.1
out of 10
A quieter influence — felt inside the films rather than across the industry.
How far the work travelled past the people who saw it first.
What survives once the release-week conversation has burned off.
Institutional acknowledgement, weighted but never decisive.
Years of chosen, relevant work rather than years merely employed.
Statuettes, read as evidence rather than verdict.
Roles named without needing the film named alongside them.
Directors who wrote parts because this performer existed.
The reading other performers now have to answer.
Actor DNA
A fingerprint derived from the roles themselves — register, range and the kind of film they carry.
The shape of a career
Every performance plotted in time. Hover a point to read the title behind it.
Peak years
Where the scores, the awards and the sheer volume of work agree with each other.
Best decade
2010s
5.7 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. The Family Fang, Blackhat — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
5.7
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
5.7
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Family Fang, Blackhat.
Most productive era
2020s
3 films
The busiest stretch of the catalogue — volume that reads as appetite rather than availability.
Range, mapped
Genres down the side, decades across the top. Warmer cells mean stronger titles.
| Genre | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 5.91 film | 3.82 films |
| Action | 5.51 film | — |
| Thriller | 5.51 film | 0.01 film |
| Comedy | 5.91 film | 0.02 films |
| Crime | 5.51 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2015Blackhat
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Assistant Warden Jeffries.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
7.6 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2026Visitors
The current state of the argument.
Our order
Every performance in the catalogue, ordered by Nutevio Score.
Every title
Filter by genre or decade, and compare any two titles side by side.
5 of 5 films
as "There's No Business Like Show Business" Performer
Directed by Lonny Price
as Eric Wilcox
Directed by Jason Bateman
as Assistant Warden Jeffries
Directed by Michael Mann
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
Loading credits…
The defining work
#1
Al
tick, tick... BOOM! (2021)
Performance score7.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Al gives Danny Burstein a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Visitors
Visitors (2026)
Performance score6.5
Visitors asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. The role is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
"There's No Business Like Show Business" Performer
Show of Titles (2021)
Performance score6.5
Show of Titles asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. "There's No Business Like Show Business" Performer is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Eric Wilcox
The Family Fang (2016)
Performance score6.5
The Family Fang asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Eric Wilcox is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movieStart here
A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.
Best entry point
as Al
Start here. tick, tick... BOOM! is the clearest statement of what Danny Burstein does — accessible, 120 minutes, and rated 7.6 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Danny at the most legible performance, then move forward in time so each film reads as a response to the one before it rather than a repetition of it.
Blackhat (2015)
A deliberate change of key after tick, tick... BOOM! — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Family Fang (2016)
A deliberate change of key after Blackhat — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Show of Titles (2021)
Keeps the comedy register of The Family Fang but asks for a colder reading of it.
Visitors (2026)
Keeps the comedy register of Show of Titles but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Michael Mann
Director
1 film together
Notably Blackhat
Jason Bateman
Director
1 film together
Notably The Family Fang
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Director
1 film together
Notably tick, tick... BOOM!
Lonny Price
Director
1 film together
Notably Show of Titles
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
tick, tick... BOOM!Jason Bateman
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Family FangMichael Mann
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BlackhatLonny Price
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Show of TitlesSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
tick, tick... BOOM!
as Al
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
tick, tick... BOOM!
as Al
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
tick, tick... BOOM!
as Al
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
tick, tick... BOOM!
as Al
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
tick, tick... BOOM!
as Al
If the career had to be argued in a single scene, our editors would pick one from this film and rest the case.
In their films' words
“You can build a whole film around a performer who knows when not to speak. Danny Burstein has known it for a long time.”
Head to head
Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Modern Classic Performer
Awarded
Defining performances delivered inside the last twenty-five years, in films already being taught rather than merely remembered.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
3 catalogue titles in comedy, each one a reference point for the films that followed.
Our desk
Best ending, best opening, best twist and the rest — categories we apply to everyone we cover.
Best ending
tick, tick... BOOM!
as Al
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
tick, tick... BOOM!
as Al
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
tick, tick... BOOM!
as Al
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Family Fang
as Eric Wilcox
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
tick, tick... BOOM!
as Al
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Blackhat
as Assistant Warden Jeffries
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
tick, tick... BOOM!
as Al
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Family Fang
as Eric Wilcox
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
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Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Ted Levine
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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